About 45 minutes, to be exact, as they sealed their place in the last four of the Capital One Cup against Swansea in style.

Arsenal might have returned from Yorkshire beaten and embarrassed by Bradford, but there was to be no such surrender from the Blues despite a poor start.

After falling behind to Luciano ­Becchio’s well-taken 15th goal of the season before the break, Rafa Benitez’s men finally woke up to fire home five in reply to put their bitter old rivals to the sword.

The European champions were a shadow of themselves early on, in a match kicking off just over 48 hours after their ­return from the Club World Cup final ­defeat in Japan.

But once Juan Mata fired Chelsea level within 60 seconds of the restart, in the contest’s pivotal moment, they did not look back.

Branislav Ivanovic headed home from a near-post corner to put Chelsea ahead after 64 minutes.

Two minutes later, Victor Moses capped a man-of-the-match display to send a thunderous effort past Jamie Ashdown from 20 yards after linking with Mata and Torres.

Chelsea waited until the last 10 minutes to ruthlessly pick tiring Leeds apart with two more goals.

Substitute Eden Hazard latched on to a stunning David Luiz through ball to slot home past Ashdown as Neil Warnock’s Championship battlers left huge gaps at the back.

Hazard turned provider with seven minutes left, squaring for Torres to round off an eye-catching display with the fifth from close range, reclaiming his place at the top of Chelsea’s scoring charts from 12-goal Mata.

Leeds played their part in a great cup tie, but were caught napping as Chelsea levelled when Moses released Mata to try his luck from 20 yards.

The winger’s scuffed shot lacked power, but on a greasy surface slipped under Ashdown’s right hand to find the bottom corner – a nightmare moment for the stand-in keeper in only his second game of the season.

Ashdown’s howler was made worse by the fact that he had put up a one-man barrier to keep Leeds on level terms, before pulling off a couple of great saves to see his side go into the break on top.

The managers put their well-publicised differences aside with a pre-match handshake to break the ice in their bitter five-year feud.

The fallout was sparked by Warnock blaming Benitez for the Spaniard’s part in his ­relegation from the top flight with Sheffield United.

However, there was little love lost ­between the sides, who went at each ­other straight from the start at a rain-lashed Elland Road.

Moses twice went close in the first 20 minutes, shooting wide and forcing a fine near-post save from Ashdown.

The speedy winger also had an early penalty shout turned down after a tussle with Michael Brown in a no-nonsense opening that saw Chelsea skipper Frank Lampard clash with the veteran Leeds midfielder as tempers flared.

Becchio headed wide from an El-Hadji Diouf cross as things opened up, and it looked like only a matter of time before the deadlock would be broken.

Paul Green headed straight at Petr Cech and it was a surprise that it took 37 ­minutes for the first goal to arrive.

Leeds stunned their high-profile visitors with a length-of-the-field move after Luiz had stormed upfield and lost the ball.

Sam Byram cut out Luiz’s sloppy pass on the edge of the Leeds box, the ball running loose to Michael Tonge, who surged forward past halfway to feed Jerome ­Thomas down the left.

The on-loan West Brom winger took a touch before sending over a low cross with the outside of the right-foot.

That cut out the back-tracking Ivanovic to find a lurking Becchio, who did the rest with a first-time finish from 12 yards past a stranded Cech.

Stunned into action, Moses had the ball in the net with a cool close-range finish but the effort was ruled out for offside against Torres in the four-man build-up.

Chances came thick and fast as half-time approached, with Lampard’s ­deflected 30-yard free-kick saved well by Ashdown low to the keeper’s right as it headed for the bottom corner.

Leeds should have doubled their lead on the verge of first-half stoppage-time. Tom Lees easily out-jumped his marker Cesar Azpilicueta to meet a tempting ­Diouf centre, only to head narrowly over from six yards.

It was a miss that was to haunt Leeds as within a blink of an eye of the restart Mata was rewarded for an apology of an effort when it looked as if it would take a moment of inspiration to beat Ashdown.

When Ivanovic and Moses stuck in ­double-quick time, there was no coming back and Hazard and Torres struck to twist the knife.